Every night after training camp I would pray a simple prayer for God to deepen my relationship with him. Once I fell in love with Christ I wanted so badly to know him even more. I kept Psalm 27: 4 close to my heart. “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” As simple as that is, that was my prayer day in and day out. And surely enough God answered… Although it wasn’t necessarily the way I would have chosen for myself.
Ever since launch I felt numb to my emotions. I wasn’t able to understand my heart and subconsciously it was beginning to eat away at me. It got to the point where I question my belief in general. This was a scary thought heading into this high school camp we were about to help out with. I was fearful about having to lead a bunch of high school students and pour into them when I didn’t even know if I believed the gospel myself.
Then the pastor gave us a brief overview of what we would be talking about at camp and lemme tell you it hit differenttttt. He read out of Matthew 14, which is the pretty popular story of Jesus walking on water. Despite Peter having walked with Jesus for quite a while now and SEEING miracles happen right in front of his eyes, when the disciples first saw Jesus from the boat they still doubted it was really him. The same was true in my life. I have witnessed the Lords miracles time after time, yet I still couldn’t get myself to believe in that moment.
After hearing that and talking to a friend. I went back to my cabin the night before the campers came and just prayed on that. In the morning God provided me with a new revelation… Not once did the Lord let go of me. In fact he knew, since I asked everyday, that I was ready for him to stretch my faith to new levels. Just like I had asked.
It was undeniably uncomfy and I struggled through a lot of scary thoughts. Stuff like: do I even want to follow Christ…Why would he leave me when I just devoted a whole nine month to him… Is this worth it…etc. Moral of the story Gods timing was perfect and camp was so much fun. I loved getting to spend time with my group and getting to just talk about life and help them navigate it.
I really didn’t see that coming haha but i’m BEYOND thankful to praise a god that answers. He didn’t answer my prayers in a way that was comfortable, he answered my prayers in a way that I would grow in my faith the most.
(A wise woman named Fran once told me that you can’t gain muscle without tearing it down first and that’s exactly what God was doing with my faith.)
I’m a stronger believer because of my season of unbelief.
Thanks for listening to a bit of my heart.
-Morgan M
